Having recently returned to her native Italy after living in Switzerland for 10 years, quiet but curious 13-year-old Marta is left to her own devices while her loving but worn-out mother toils away at an industrial bakery. Marta's only source of socialization is the local church, where she is told to attend preparatory classes for her confirmation. But the doctrines of Roman Catholicism offer little in terms of life lessons or consolation, and she quickly sees through the hypocrisy of the priest, who cares more about status than about his constituents. Eventually, Marta forges her very own way of the cross, which turns out to have much less to do with God than with her own climb towards adulthood.